“We’re going in pretty confident,” Woodland boys coach Tim Shea said. “The kids are still a little burned. I know the boys, after tying Holy Cross and letting Watertown get away from us, have something to prove. And if people overlook our girls, I think they’re hitting their stride right now.”
Both the boys and girls teams won most of the events on a dreary Tuesday afternoon in the tri-meet among Woodland, O’Brien Tech and Platt Tech.
On the boys side, the Hawks swept the relays. In the 4-by-800, the team of Nick Hebert, Marc Beaulieu, Adam Baz, and Eric Dietz won in 9 minutes, 13 seconds. The 4-by-100 squad of Mike Lang, Nick LaPerriere, Brian Zaccagnini, and Craig Genz took victory in 46.6 seconds, while the 4-by-400 team of Ron Jennings, Andy Hale, Genz, and Beaulieu won in 3:54.
Ian Bures won the 110 hurdles (18.2 seconds) and the 300 hurdles (45.6 seconds) while LaPerriere won the 100 in 11.6 seconds. Hebert won the 1,600 in 4:51, Dietz took the 400 in 52.3 seconds, Beaulieu won the 800 in 2:13, and Lang took the 200 in 23.8 seconds.
In the field, Mitch White won the pole vault with a height of 10 feet, 6 inches. Scott Lang won the javelin with a throw of 157 feet while Mike Lang won both the long and high jumps with leaps of 17-11 and 5-4, respectively. Jon Fitzpatrick earned a victory in the triple jump with a bound of 34-10.
The girls also swept the relays. In the 4-by-800, the team of Mary Sardinskas, Audra Blewitt, Hannah Deegan, and Sydney Corneau won with a time of 11:37, while the 4-by-100 squad of Arica Watford, Steph Dumond, Ashley Michie, and Jiye Park won in 54.3 seconds. The 4-by-400 team of Michie, Blewitt, Deegan, and Corneau completed the sweep in 4:46.
Individual track event winners included Watford (13.3 seconds in the 100), Crystal Steinfeld (5:56 in the 1,600), Corneau (1:07 in the 400), Tayler Boncal (2:51 in the 800), Park (28.2 seconds in the 200), and Sardinskas (13:33 in the 3,200).
In the field, Claire Burke won the pole vault with a height of 7 feet while Olivia Poryanda won the javelin with a toss of 95-2. Park won the long and triple jumps with leaps of 13-6.5 and 31-6, respectively, while Deegan won the high jump with a height of 4-2.
Shea and girls coach Jeff Lownds have been pleased with both teams’ performances throughout the season after neither side brought back many pieces from the loaded teams of recent years.
“This year, people didn’t give us a lot of chance, boys or girls,” Shea said. “Right now a lot of the kids aren’t happy being 12-1-1 and 12-2, but once the season’s over and we think about it, we accomplished a lot this year with what we have. We are very, very young, especially on the girls side, where a lot of the core girls are sophomores. They’re going to make some noise next week and it’s going to be a sign for next year.”
The NVL championships are scheduled for Tuesday at Woodland while the Class M championships are set for June 1 at Willowbrook Park in New Britain.
“Ultimately, we want to score in every event in the league meet and place as many athletes as we can in the state meet,” Shea said. “We’d like to be top five in our class and top three in our league.”
“We think we can be top three,” Lownds added. “A good day puts us in the top three.”
